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Politics

How to compare?

AvsB

Many of the political discussions we have every day involve comparison. Income redistribution advocates compare the incomes of the top 1% or 10% with the income of the bottom 1% or %10, Gun restriction advocates compare gun murder rates in the U.S. versus the same rates in France and Nationalized heath care advocates compare the cost of health care in the U.S. vs. the cost in U.K. or France. Activists cite these comparisons to create a single punch line such as “the top 1% control majority of wealth” or “Nationalized healthcare will save the U.S. a lot of money” but these are misleading comparisons.

When you shop for a car you don’t just look at the price then buy the cheapest option. You look at the individual features, safety, price, warranty and many other variables and then you make your decision. Not all aspects will have the same weight and you will take that into consideration but if you care about price more than anything you may still buy a car that is a bit more expensive if it has a nice feature and the difference in price is acceptable to you.

We should use the same mentality when we evaluate options offered by politicians for a certain problem. When socialists claim that it is unfair for a CEO to have much more income than a typical employee in a company, we should look to other differences between the two people such as education, skills and productivity.Read More »How to compare?

Government Grants

MoneyWithWings

Yesterday, I received an email from my congressman, he was sharing with the citizens of the district some opportunities for federal grants. It turned out that there is a website called grants.gov that lists all grants available from the different departments of the federal government. I did a quick web search using few states and all of them have similar grant programs.

Can the government start and fund the right projects?

In the free market when an entrepreneur starts a project, he estimates the market need for the product or service the project is going to offer and the possible price to charge. He funds the project through his money, loans or partnership with investors. The market provides a signal through profit and loss to the entrepreneur and the investors to steer the project to success or shutdown. If the entrepreneur tried to continue a failing project his investors will not continue supporting the project and may go to courts to block the project and extract what remain of their money.Read More »Government Grants

Education vs. Schooling

Education

The cost of college and public schools education quality are two of the main political issues now in the United States. The progressives believe that we should spend more on K-12 education, although we already spend the most per student, and create a federal standard for school curriculum and force the states to adopt it, hence common core. For college education, the progressives are pushing for plans to make the college free, which means that the taxpayers will pay for everyone’s college education regardless of whether they need or deserve such education. Conservatives on the other side are pushing for school choice, teacher accountability and the return of education powers to the local school boards which are all good ideas if your goal is to make public schools function better, but nobody is seriously considering the role all levels of government are playing in education. Are public schools necessary?

Read More »Education vs. Schooling

Heart vs. Mind

Should we support a government program just to do something?

Heart-vs-Head

Yesterday I participated in a phone survey about a proposed ballot measure to approve the county selling bonds to finance low-income housing construction. The survey asked for my opinion about a number of sentences that support the measure. The sentences were all like “the measure will offer housing to veterans”, “the measure will help low-income people crushed by high home prices” and “this measure will give homeless people a place to live”. After I answered all the questions that I will not support the measure and ended the call; I thought about how is this measure being sold and how government programs start.

The usual government program life start when a disaster happen or with news media focusing on people affected by a certain problem. Then loud voices in the media shout that we need to do something and politicians suggest a new government program to do something. Activists then urge People then to either vote or pressure their representatives to vote to support the program that will do something. Eventually the program passes and the media and the activists move to the next issue that we need to do something about.

This story is always missing asking two important questions:

  1. Why do this problem exist or why did that disaster happen?
  2. Does the proposed program actually solve the problem?

Read More »Heart vs. Mind